The Forty Rules of Love: A Journey of Love, Faith, and Transformation

The international bestseller from the author of the Booker-shortlisted novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World

* One of the BBC's '100 Novels that Shaped the World'*

"Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven't loved enough..."

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella's life - an emptiness once filled by love.

So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and his mentor Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, she is ready to look at her life anew. Compelled to embrace change, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into a faraway world where faith and doubt are heartbreakingly explored. The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerising tale of discovery, language, truth and, of course, love itself.

'Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love' Metro

'Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent' Daily Telegraph

'The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself' The Times

ELIF SHAFAK'S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE NOW

Elif Shafak is an award-winning British Turkish novelist, whose work has been translated into fifty-eight languages. The author of twenty books, thirteen of which are novels, she is a bestselling author in many countries around the world. Shafak’s novel 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. The Island of Missing Trees was a Sunday Times bestseller, and was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the Women’s Prize for Fiction. There are Rivers in the Sky, which won an Edward Stanford Award for Fiction, is her latest novel.

A gorgeous, jeweled, luxurious book ― The Times

With its timely, thought-provoking message . . . The Forty Rules of Love deserves to be a global publishing phenomenon ― Independent

Enlightening, enthralling. An affecting paean to faith and love ― Metro

Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent

― Daily Telegraph

The past and present fit together beautifully in a passionate defence of passion itself ― The Times

Shafak will challenge Paulo Coelho's dominance. With its timely, thought-provoking message . . . The Forty Rules of Love deserves to be a global publishing phenomenon ― Independent

Colourfully woven and beguilingly intelligent ― Daily Telegraph